King_Herpes wrote:So...let me get this straight, I can accuse people of doing what I perceive as farming. By making a report in some place called the Cheating & Abuse forum without slandering their names in General Discussions and incessantly pointing at their games with a laser pointer?

Nice.

you left out the whole offensive ugly cat avatar... that is essential for these activities... the black jesus has spoken...-0

artimis wrote:NEWBIE: A new comer who is highly inexperienced and not too familiar with the rules or how to play the game.LOWBIE: Formerly a NEWBIE that has been around long enough to pick up the game and start winning, but is not particularly successful for whatever reason.

Big difference, LOWBIES are aware of the dangers of playing, know how to play and can(if they work hard enough) win games.

You are not adding anything to this discussion that anybody, even myself, did not know or agree with. We all know Lack was talking about Newbie farming. However, I think we should take seriously his stated concern that the scoreboard should represent a player's skill as opposed to decision to employ harvesting techniques. This transcends Newbie farming because it is possible to harvest cooks and cadets - they dead beat a lot, have poor strategy and/or don't read game chat. If you can play on certain map settings against players of such low skill/motivation that they will win less than 1 in 21 games against an organized, skilled team, that team can be harvested by farmers. (5 points * 20 losses = 100 points lost, 100 points * 1 win = 100 points gained)

If functionality were provided to search past games by rank of the players, we could easily calculate just how often an all cook/cadet team is able to win against a team with at least one colonel or brig. If they lose more than 20 out of 21 times that would prove the efficacy of the harvesting technique. Maybe on straightforward maps instead of waterloo or conquerman they can actually win 1 out of 21 games. Then we would just need to extend the current New Recruit map restriction to cooks and cadets.

I could be totally wrong, but I don't think so. Why don't we let numbers decide?

Lack likes numbers and I think he employed similar methods to determine that Newbie farming was a viable harvesting technique. So if the mods won't enforce his stated position against harvesting techniques and he is truly concerned about the problem, he will crunch the numbers on this one to determine if cadet/cook targeting is indeed a viable harvesting technique.

FarangDemon wrote:If functionality were provided to search past games by rank of the players, we could easily calculate just how often an all cook/cadet team is able to win against a team with at least one colonel or brig. If they lose more than 20 out of 21 times that would prove the efficacy of the harvesting technique. Maybe on straightforward maps instead of waterloo or conquerman they can actually win 1 out of 21 games. Then we would just need to extend the current New Recruit map restriction to cooks and cadets.

I could be totally wrong, but I don't think so. Why don't we let numbers decide?

If you looked at the problem slightly differently you would actually be able to work this out yourself - functionality exists for you, just not exactly in the same direction as your way of looking at this problem.

FarangDemon wrote:You are not adding anything to this discussion that anybody, even myself, did not know or agree with.

That makes two of us.

FarangDemon wrote:This transcends Newbie farming because it is possible to harvest cooks and cadets - they dead beat a lot, have poor strategy and/or don't read game chat.

That as may be, they certainly didn't do any of that in the games I played with KH.

FarangDemon wrote:Then we would just need to extend the current New Recruit map restriction to cooks and cadets.

So you're suggesting an effective ban on certain maps for players with a low score? No thank you very much! They can't learn the map if they can't play, it's as simple as that. Also I personally object on the grounds that my score dips regularly when I suddenly go on a new map try out blitz. So I would most definitely not appreciate being barred from newer, harder and more interesting maps just because I couldn't give a flying toss about my score!

farang, this has been said before but you never seem to read it (you certainly dont reply)... you abuse the scoring system by asking high ranked players to set up private games for you and your partner to join, your partner being a striper

you deserve to win and lose 20 points per games but i remember only taking 14 so you stole 6 points there which is more than what id gain if i played a cadet or a cook!

Jeff stop your hypocricy in this thread. You have repeatedly teased me with multiple p.m.s that you'd play me. But, you always try to put HUGE restrictions on the type of game you want to play. Or, you'll pm me at some awkward time about some illusional speed game, especially when I told you that I just don't have the time for one, at the time of your constant e-mails.

You have shown how precious your points mean to you.

Telling players to shut up is not only rude, but shows what a hypocrite you are.

freakns wrote:also, who cares about points? if someone is that much obsessed with fake success, then let him/her have it... having fun and playing with my m8s is much more important in my book

I don't wish to take the fun out of the game. I just would like to take farming out of the game. It could easily be done. And rest assured that fun can be preserved under a scoring system that does not reward farming.

You sound happy with the system, and I respect your opinion. But if you stick around long enough and become competitive, you will start to gain some satisfaction in having attained a higher rank by consistently beating opponents. That is normal and healthy. Then after you get to a certain point, it will dawn on you that not skill, but willingness and persistence to continually apply harvesting techniques is the only way to get ahead. I haven't reached that point, but I can clearly see that it lies ahead. I want to get ahead without having to farm - namely, by playing and beating the best players.

Let's change the system where this is how you get ahead. If you don't care about your score, you don't care about your score - that has no bearing on any argument except that you don't care about your score. Anti-farming measures are not going to adversely affect you.

Many players that are adamant about allowing harvesting techniques is because they enjoy that aspect of the game. It is reassuring to know that you can always up your score by targeting cooks and cadets on map settings that they cannot win 1 in 60 games on.

Of course I understand where they are coming from and respect their opinions, but the reality is that the majority of the CC community actively wishes to scrap the scoring system that rewards harvesting techniques.

Last edited by FarangDemon on Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:03 am, edited 2 times in total.

prismsaber wrote:Words of a loser. Ever think that one could enjoy both success and playing with their m8's?

Words of a ..... Actually I can't say that here, it's not Flame Wars.

FarangDemon wrote:Many players that are adamant about allowing harvesting techniques is because they enjoy that aspect of the game. It is reassuring to know that you can always up your score by targeting cooks and cadets on map settings that they cannot win 1 in 60 games on.

Fine, so look for ways to take farming out of the game, but that suggestion annoys me, because I don't want to be forced into minding my score just so as I can continue to play some of my favourite maps. Hmmmm, I've got a modification in mind, see you in the other forum.

FarangDemon wrote:I just would like to take farming out of the game. It could easily be done. And rest assured that fun can be preserved under a scoring system that does not reward farming.

You sound happy with the system, and I respect your opinion. But if you stick around long enough and become competitive, you will start to gain some satisfaction in having attained a higher rank by consistently beating opponents. That is normal and healthy. Then after you get to a certain point, it will dawn on you that not skill, but willingness and persistence to continually apply harvesting techniques is the only way to get ahead. I haven't reached that point, but I can clearly see that it lies ahead. I want to get ahead without having to farm - namely, by playing and beating the best players.

while i agree with most of what youve said, i really failing to see how can someone lose 60 games in a row. and i think you can easily change game settings and prevent farming. for example, any player with more then 1500 points can not gain or lose any point in games where at least one player has score lower then 1000. or 800. you count the right numbers... those people can play among each other, but cant win anything but satisfaction of playing a game... this way people who care only about their score wouldnt have a chance to gain score through farming... and thats just one idea...

prismsaber wrote:

freakns wrote:also, who cares about points? if someone is that much obsessed with fake success, then let him/her have it... having fun and playing with my m8s is much more important in my book

Words of a loser. Ever think that one could enjoy both success and playing with their m8's?

ever think risk is a game of luck as much as a game of strategy?and i have no intention to call out for you or your opinion... must be because im such a loser...ps. i do enjoy winning. strangely...

freakns wrote:also, who cares about points? if someone is that much obsessed with fake success, then let him/her have it... having fun and playing with my m8s is much more important in my book

ever think risk is a game of luck as much as a game of strategy?and i have no intention to call out for you or your opinion... must be because im such a loser...ps. i do enjoy winning. strangely...

I'm tired of low rank, mediocre players complaining about "fake success" and that if you care about actually being good then you're not enjoying the game. This is a logical fallacy. Yes there is obviously an element of luck and that's why the best players lose to even cooks once in a while but the cream always rises to the top as they say. I enjoy having a decent rank and playing this game with real life friends...it's the best of both worlds.

No matter how much someone tries to rationalize their low rank ("I'm just having fun!") the reason why they aren't ranked more highly is because A. They are not very good, B. They are simply inexperienced, or C. they play highly luck based game types for whatever reason. Regardless, if you just like to have "fun" then why post in the forums and belittle other people's accomplishments? Maybe you just enjoy conflict.

freakns wrote:also, who cares about points? if someone is that much obsessed with fake success, then let him/her have it... having fun and playing with my m8s is much more important in my book

ever think risk is a game of luck as much as a game of strategy?and i have no intention to call out for you or your opinion... must be because im such a loser...ps. i do enjoy winning. strangely...

I'm tired of low rank, mediocre players complaining about "fake success" and that if you care about actually being good then you're not enjoying the game. This is a logical fallacy. Yes there is obviously an element of luck and that's why the best players lose to even cooks once in a while but the cream always rises to the top as they say. I enjoy having a decent rank and playing this game with real life friends...it's the best of both worlds.

No matter how much someone tries to rationalize their low rank ("I'm just having fun!") the reason why they aren't ranked more highly is because A. They are not very good, B. They are simply inexperienced, or C. they play highly luck based game types for whatever reason. Regardless, if you just like to have "fun" then why post in the forums and belittle other people's accomplishments? Maybe you just enjoy conflict.

are you suggesting im mediocre player who is complaining about others being successful? well, i might be, but im here for about a month, finished 17 games and won in 10 of them, so you cant say anything about how good i am...actually, i was the one saying if someone wants fishing for cooks and playing that way, let him. i looked at some of the top players on the scoreboard, and the pattern is more then visible. mostly team games with same teammates. i understand they like playing that way, its fine by me. but do i want to play like that, and turn risk into a mechanic game where strategy is determine infront? no, thank you. and if someone measures my skills based on points score this way? fine by me, because as i said, im not playing this to be best, because there is only one best player and bunch of angry one chasing him. i dont know about you, but id rather chase something else and spend my time here trying to be better then my friends in every game we play... sometimes someone else will prevail and will rub my nose about it, but you know what? its also fun. yes, it is, trust meand yeah, i dont rationalize my low rank, i just dont care about it. is that so hard to understand? im ready to congratulate you on your good ranking and if we meat on CC battlefield one day, im sure i will enjoy the challenge you can give me, and hopefully vise versa. because losing a game, as i said, can also be fun, on so many levels. after all, its just a game...

Check out the link I posted above. It explains in detail how in all 60 games containing a particular player on a particular map against teams consisting of at least one cook and nobody Lieutenant or above, the cook team lost every single one of the 60 games.

This shows that high ranked players that target teams containing cooks and no officers on Waterloo are exploiting a harvesting technique whereby they can win every game because their opponents can never win. Sure they would win eventually, given enough games, but they don't win enough to prevent technique from being profitable.

The implication is that harvesting of less skilled players may be possible on many different maps and map restrictions should be imposed to prevent players from exploiting this harvesting technique.

While Lack mentioned that the scoreboard was supposed to measure skill and not the use of harvesting techniques, he did not specifically define harvesting techniques. That is what my sug bug is attempting to do. Define harvesting techniques by looking at how often cook teams actually win against skilled, organized players.

Check out the link I posted above. It explains in detail how in all 60 games containing a particular player on a particular map against teams consisting of at least one cook and nobody Lieutenant or above, the cook team lost every single one of the 60 games.

This shows that high ranked players that target teams containing cooks and no officers on Waterloo are exploiting a harvesting technique whereby they can win every game because their opponents can never win. Sure they would win eventually, given enough games, but they don't win enough to prevent technique from being profitable.

The implication is that harvesting of less skilled players may be possible on many different maps and map restrictions should be imposed to prevent players from exploiting this harvesting technique.

While Lack mentioned that the scoreboard was supposed to measure skill and not the use of harvesting techniques, he did not specifically define harvesting techniques. That is what my sug bug is attempting to do. Define harvesting techniques by looking at how often cook teams actually win against skilled, organized players.

GREAT!!!

With all this information about "Farming", others like myself can now move up the ladder of ranks. Slowly, but surely.

Just call me Farmer Stoneham, farmer of newbies and other morons. Mmmmmm, what's cooking? Cooks with a touch of cadet and newbie, Mmmmm

With all this information about "Farming", others like myself can now move up the ladder of ranks. Slowly, but surely.

Just call me Farmer Stoneham, farmer of newbies and other morons. Mmmmmm, what's cooking? Cooks with a touch of cadet and newbie, Mmmmm

I believe the point of Farang bringing this to our attention is inform potential targets of farming so that they will be wary of the situations he has outlined, not encourage the proliferation of farming. I applaud his noble intentions, but I find some of his suggestions, somewhat hard to stomach at best.

With all this information about "Farming", others like myself can now move up the ladder of ranks. Slowly, but surely.

Just call me Farmer Stoneham, farmer of newbies and other morons. Mmmmmm, what's cooking? Cooks with a touch of cadet and newbie, Mmmmm

I believe the point of Farang bringing this to our attention is inform potential targets of farming so that they will be wary of the situations he has outlined, not encourage the proliferation of farming. I applaud his noble intentions, but I find some of his suggestions, somewhat hard to stomach at best.

Who's going to bring this to the attention to newbies or other targets, that you have mentioned? You? C.C.?

Too funny Atimis! Yes, I see people who want to join C.C. and being forced first to read warnings about predators at this site.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Beware of predators here at this game site. You may be in danger of being attacked by high-ranking pedophiles, who prey on the tasty points of your low ranking.

Oh my! I better go to some other gaming site, or I may get victimized by King Herpes and his other cohorts!

thegreekdog wrote:I am a relatively new player... love the game, etc. If I receive an email from someone asking me to play a game, I'll say yes, no matter who it is or where it is. I'm not really caring that they are better at this game than I am and that I have a 90% chance to lose. I can learn something from the game and I'm fairly sure I'll have fun.

With that being said, I didn't know what farmers were until a week ago, which happened to coincide with me getting a random message to join a game (I didn't join because it was 3 AM EST and I was a drunk). Anyway my point is that Newbie farmers are only "hurting" people who are not newbie farmers (i.e. the people posting here who think their low ranking comparatively to newbie farmers are because of newbie farming). I don't think newbie farmers are hurting newbies. I got drilled in my first few games, and I get destroyed anytime I change settings or maps to something unfamiliar to me. Yet, I'm still playing. In an effort to anger everyone, I will say that :

(1) People who try to win games against newbies just to increase their point total are hurting themselves because it cannot be fun to beat up on someone who has no clue what they're doing... that's like a 300 pound man beating up a 100 pound guy. Sure, the little guy is hurting, but the 300 pound guy should be ashamed of himself. But, to each their own.(2) The supposed purpose of banning newbie farming is to get newbies to stay on the site. However, I think the people supporting the ban of newbie farming are not concerned with that so much as they are concerned about eliminating the newbie farmers from the game. The point is that the supports of the newbie farming ban are more concerned with their own advancement than whether or not newbies stay with the site. Newbies are going to stay on this site because playing is fun and distracting and because the maps are really well-done. They are not going to stay just because they win some games.At any rate, that's the view from the bottom.

The second point is absolutely right. I've found few people in life who give a shit about the little guy, yet I have met many who pretend to when it fits in with an argument they are having. Considering most people in my generation are intolerably self-centred (I'm in my late twenties) and those in the next generation even worse, this idea of players here saying "think of the poor new player, think of his enjoyment!" has always been, in the main, utter tosh. "Think of MY ranking, think of MY points!" is a far more likely sentiment to come from Thatcher and Reagan's children. However, I would say that the number of people who have written about the 'poor player's enjoyment' while figuratively swigging back the champagne of a high rank can only have come from the Blair/Clinton/Bush era.

King_H cold attain ten thousand points in any way he so chooses and it wouldn't effect my sense of self-worth one little bit. I know I am a good player. I could be number 500, number 300 or number 1,000 and it wouldn't effect the fact that I know I'm a bastard to beat on a Risk board. I can imagine chaps like porkenbeans and farangdemon going through the leaderboard counting up those they consider farmers and saying to themselves "I would be in the top 250 (or whatever) if all these farmers weren't farming." That's pretty sad, but understandable. What's so infuriating is that they then pretend they write 'for the good of the site'. Highly unlikely. Like most people in our decadent Western societies, they write for their own good and their own interest always.

Change the rules by all means Lack, for it might well make the site better...and hence be in your self-interest to do so. I would hope you're not fooled by the bleating of a bunch of pampered little babies that are prime examples of the 'me, me, me!' generation, with a bit of champagne socialism thrown in just to be sadly fitting of the times we live in.

First of all let me apologise for bringing this post back up here and to all the comments , further discussion etc etc since this post was made.

For me, the comments posted by Mr Changsha are absoloutly spot on and ring so so true. In my opinion that was the topic summed up and underlined for me. It inspired to write my very first post on CC!

I am still relatively new to CC but do have Risk experience from the days when The MSN Gaming Zone was up and running a few years ago. I dont know how I missed this site for so long but was delighted to find the ad on Facebook.I never thought I was being farmed ever. I put my defeats down to my own stupid mistakes and lack of map knowledge and general CC experience.

I think that most people who are genuine fans of the game, the ones who love it, will discover CC and will be like a kid in a sweet shop. I know I am. CC will slowly get more and more popular over time. Its a case of as and when people find it.It took me long enough to find it and being farmed and other petty issues like that would never have put me off joining or have any effect on if I stayed or not.

For me personally I have no interest in the scoreboard. I have no idea what position I am in nor do I intend to have climbing the scoreboard as a pursuit. However, I do like rank as a reflection of achievement. I know for a fact the rank I have now has been hard fought for and earned. If I dont deserve it then I wont be up there very long. Anybody who has beaten up noobs to get a higher ranking dosent have the satisfaction of achievement and would get hammered against the better players. For me that is their problem and it is them that are missing out.

atlantic909 wrote:If I dont deserve it then I wont be up there very long.

Not true. You can maintain a high score indefinitely by applying tried and true harvesting techniques.

You can even increase your score to Conqueror. Just assemble a disciplined team and target teams containing cooks and no one ranked Lieutenant or above on Waterloo. If you are good enough at Waterloo you can win risk-free points in 60 out of 60 games. Your point gain is limited only to the number of games you can play.

This harvesting technique could be easily prevented by limiting map settings and maps available to low skilled players.

I did previously assert that new recruits that get farmed are more likely to leave CC and Lack has backed this up with actual data and acted on the suggestions as everybody has read in this thread. That being said, my arguments about further restriction of map settings and maps to the lower ranks is not to actively protect them from the supposed ill effects of farming. Anyone that reads my posts will see that my arguments center on the effect that farming has on inflating the scores of the top ranked players, and how this stifles peer to peer competition. I never profess that the harvested deserve protection from losing. I profess that we deserve a scoring system that rewards skill instead of application of harvesting techniques. If such a system prevents imbalanced match-ups like a quads cooks team playing against the top ranked players of the site, games which the cooks historically lose 60 out of 60 times, then so be it.

This targeting has just got to go if you want a fair scoreboard that reflects skill instead of harvesting techniques.

I agree with what the above post is saying if the leaderboard is your motivation for playing. My point was on a much more personal level. I expect most people who play the game on a fair basis will find a sense of achievement when they reach officer rank. If me, as an individual isnt good enough to stay at officer level or it was just luck, fluke or whatever then Ive got stripes again soon.